Looking Forward to 2016 (I Think)

Trailheads will be taking a little break for Christmas and New Year's, so this post is early (Happy Festivus) and will have to do two posts' worth of "work." Whatever you may be celebrating, wherever you may be traveling, whoever you may be spending the next week with - I hope that your world is filled with good things. Thank you for reading this blog and for supporting PHMC's Trails of History. Cheers to the New Year! Here's hoping that 2016 brings more peace, more light, more joy.

And for the rest of us: Happy #Festivus. https://t.co/QdVYFNNgDH pic.twitter.com/WM0UfH8wUk

— Phila Museum of Art (@philamuseum) December 23, 2015

The December program listings are still up so that you can see what there is to do this coming week, and the January listings are available if you want to plan ahead. Please note that many sites will close early tomorrow (Dec. 24) and Dec. 31, and that operating schedules will change for a number of sites in January. Always be sure to check ahead to be sure the site you want to visit will be open when you plan to be there.

As of this writing (12/23), there are still tickets available for Ephrata Cloister's Lantern Tour program, which runs Dec. 26-29 with tours leaving the visitor center at 6:30, 7, 7:30, and 8 pm (more info on how to get tickets). This year's focus is one of the community's founders, Brother Amos; a short-term exhibit is currently on display in the visitor center that helps tell the story as well. (You might also be interested in reading about a recent acquisition at Ephrata.)

Last I checked, there were a limited number of Patriot's Passes available for Friday's reenactment of George Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River on Christmas Night 1776. The event is free to the public, but a Patriot's Pass ($25 per person) gets you a prime viewing spot and adult beverages.

The model train layout that staff from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania set up at the Governor's Residence was featured in a Lancaster Online article, which also includes some advice for those of you who want to set up your own layout (still time for this year).

If you have attended the annual "Twelfth Day" program at the Joseph Priestley House, which presents the English holiday celebration of Epiphany, please note that the program is now "Twelfth Night" and will be held Sunday, January 3, from 4 to 7 pm. It's a rare opportunity to see the sight by lantern light. (Priestley House is otherwise closed until March, except by appointment.)

2016 will mark the 100th Pennsylvania Farm Show (Jan. 9-16) and PHMC will be on hand to help mark the occasion. The State Museum Archaeology program, in cooperation with the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology and the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council, will have an exhibit on the development of agriculture in Pennsylvania. Folks from Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum will display, among other things, a Conestoga Wagon and a selection of farm machinery models designed by Lancaster County inventor William Chester Ruth.

Landis Valley plows, etc., staged and ready to go to the 2016 PA Farm Show